The arrest of Luigi Mangione, in connection with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, shocked not just the nation but brought as an effect an unexpected phenomenon to hit a local McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. This fast-food place became the target of an overwhelming amount of negative online reviews after the arrest showed the crossroads of crime, social media, and public sentiment.
The arrest at McDonald’s
On December 9, 2024, Luigi Mangione was arrested at an Altoona McDonald’s after an employee identified him from surveillance footage released by police. Mangione was wanted in the shooting death of Brian Thompson days earlier outside a hotel in New York City. At the time of his arrest, authorities found a ghost gun and counterfeit identification on his person, adding to his legal issues.
The incident of his capture has, since then, received such high media attention that public interest has compelled a wave of backlash against the McDonald’s establishment where he was found.
Review bombing of the Altoona McDonald’s
In the days after the arrest of Mangione, this Altoona McDonald’s became flooded with negative Google reviews, negative Yelp, all these review sites had, the thing is that most of these were not genuine customers. These reviews became part of some very well-planned “review bombs”. The people had written various fake bad reviews to spoil this business as its reputation, too, following a certain incident.
- Types of reviews: Many of the reviews used pejorative language referring to “rats” in the kitchen, which applied to the employee who called authorities on Mangione. One review jokingly said, “This place has rodents in the kitchen that will make you sick, and your insurance won’t cover it.” Another one said, “More like Narc-donalds. hope obesity heart disease in-network” a dig at both the restaurant and the healthcare system.
- Business impact: The inflow of negative reviews suddenly affected the restaurant’s rating on the site. In light of this unusual behavior, Yelp has temporarily withheld new review submissions for that business pending an investigation into whether the reviews accurately reflected their dining experiences or were more a reflection of what had transpired.
Google’s response to negative reviews
As a response to the deluge of comments against the Altoona McDonald’s, Google took many such comments down because they ran afoul of its rules. Indeed, according to the guideline of Google, every review should be an actual experience of clients and not attempt to deceive business reputation. Indeed, it has been confirmed by a spokesperson that they added additional safeguards to block future unrelated reviews from appearing.
Despite Google’s best efforts to clean up the eatery’s online presence, some fake reviews remained visible for a period after their initial removal. This shows just how fast misinformation can go viral online and the potential consequences for businesses caught in the crossfire of public sentiment.
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